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Robert Kirby is out of town. Today's column is a reprint.
Thanksgiving is (ominous drum roll) almost upon us. You better decide soon what kind of Thanksgiving you are going to celebrate. Some forms require prior approval from the Environmental Protection Agency.
Will it be the traditional Thanksgiving? By this I mean turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, and a heart attack. Or will you go for a totally post-modern Thanksgiving of beer, Chinese food and football?
Most people opt for tradition, with maybe a few added wrinkles of their own. For example, while it's common knowledge that the pilgrims and Native Americans celebrated the first Thanksgiving by feasting on turkey, it's not exactly clear when candied yams and Jell-O salad entered the picture.
I was raised on Thanksgiving orthodoxy. Every year, my parents sat us down to a turkey the size of a Volkswagen. We ate until our internal organs relocated into our legs. One year, my little brother exploded.
So be careful. Tradition can be a dangerous thing, especially if you are trying to follow it with only a vague sense of how it is accomplished. Most holiday traditions are a lot more complicated than they look.
I learned this the first time I tried to celebrate Thanksgiving on my own. Trapped in Nalgas de Vaca with three other homesick LDS missionaries, we decided to ease our pain by recreating the Thanksgivings we knew and
It was not a decision we treated lightly. We talked about pumpkin pie, buttered biscuits, turkey and stuffing until, starving and delirious, we lost our minds and decided that we could do it ourselves. After all, the first Thanksgiving was celebrated by a highly conservative religious group stuck in a strange land.
Our first mistake was to buy a live turkey from a local farmer. The turkey was so small and pitiful looking that Elder Boone felt sorry and wanted to keep it and name it Tom.
The farmer solved that dilemma by cutting off the turkey's head.
Cruel as it sounds, this actually made Tom a lot more alert for about 30 seconds. We had to dog pile him to get him in a sack, ruining four white shirts in the process.
We took the turkey back to our apartment where we cleaned and plucked it over a period of about a month. Or maybe it just seemed like it took that long. All I remember for sure is that it was only slightly messier than an airplane crash, and Elder Mooton declared himself henceforth a vegetarian.
Once the turkey was naked, things got worse. For starters, it was way smaller. It looked like Don Knotts taking a shower. Of course, this was back before the miracle of cosmetic breast implants helped make the poultry business what it is today.
Our second and final mistake was to cut a very important corner.
Being young and male, it was easy. Elder Horrocks suggested that we combine the process of making bread for the stuffing with the actual cooking of the turkey.
So, instead of bread crumbs, we packed Tom full of bread dough and put him in the oven. Then we went out to find a pumpkin for a pie.
For those who have never tried to make a pie from an actual pumpkin, I have two words: run away. It cannot be done short of a fully equipped laboratory. The result of our attempt at dessert was like trying to eat a boiled parachute.
Of course, this was after we came home and found that Tom had exploded in the oven. The ensuing mess and stench attracted about 200 cats and the fire department, which chopped down our front door. Thanksgiving dinner that evening consisted of peanuts and Sprite.
All I'm saying is be careful. Celebrate Thanksgiving safely by letting trained professionals prepare it.
